Fantasy 411 Glossary

Hey guys,

With the season now in full swing, we thought it would be a cool idea to put together a Fantasy 411 glossary consisting of basic fantasy terms (for the newbies) and phrases specific to the 411 show. Most of these sayings go back to the old radio days so we hope that this glossary will be both useful for the beginners and entertaining for the longtime listeners.

I’ll also be putting up a link to this post on the right side panel under “Fantasy Resources.”

-Zach

Roto league – Rotisserie league – refers to league where the standings are determined by where teams place in all the various categories in relation to the other teams in the league.

H2H – Head-to-head league

Vanilla league – Usually refers to a 12 team roto league with standard scoring categories. Batting average, home runs, RBIs, runs, stolen bases for hitters and wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA and WHIP (Walks + Hits per innings pitched) for pitchers.

5×5 – See above. Five hitting and five pitching categories.

Redraft league – Refers to a non-keeper league.

Snake Draft – The most common form of drafting in which teams select players in a certain order and the team with the last pick in the first round receives the first pick in the second round and so forth. The selection process continues to “snake” from one side to the other until the draft is completed.

Auction Draft – An alternate form of drafting where owners are given a fixed budget (usually $260) to bid on players with the player going to the highest bidder. The advantage of the auction draft is that an owner could draft any player they want so long as they have the money to get him.

FAAB (Free Agent Auction Bidding) – An alternate method to waiver priority usually implemented in auction draft leagues. Each team receives a certain number of FAAB dollars to start the season to use towards bidding on waived players and, in some leagues, all free agents. The team with the winning bid receives the player and the bid amount is deducted from their budget.

Vickery Bidding – A type of FAAB bidding where the highest bidder does not have to pay his full bid. Rather, he would pay $1 more than the second-highest bid. So if the winning bid is $20 and the second highest bid is $15, the owner with the $20 bid would only be charged $16.

Keeper leagues – Leagues where owners are allowed to keep a predetermined number of players for the following season. In auction keeper leagues, players are kept for their originally drafted price but in some cases salary escalators are involved, so, for instance, a player who is drafted for $5 in 2010 can be kept for $5 in 2011 but his price would rise by $5 for each following season…$10 for 2012, $15 for 2013, etc.

Dynasty leagues – Refers to long-term keeper leagues that will NEVER redraft.

Pitch or Ditch – Strategy of routinely picking up starting pitchers off the waiver wire to start in favorable matchups and either dropping them after the one start or holding onto them for awhile longer.

Club DTM – DTM stands for “dead to me”, so Club DTM refers to a group of starting pitchers who, at least for the short-term, Mike and Cory will not recommend for pitch or ditch. It’ll take a few consecutive solid starts for these guys to redeem themselves and earn back pitch or ditch consideration.

YPNM – “Your problem not mine”

Monday Thursday guys – Since many clubs are off on Mondays and/or Thursdays and in many fantasy leagues there is no limit for games played by hitters, fantasy teams can benefit from, throughout the season, picking up hitters who do have games on those days to fill in at some of the roster slots, therefore maximizing the team’s production in the counting stats.

Waiver Priority – When a player is dropped, he goes on waivers for a certain number of days. During this time, teams can submit a waiver claim for the player. When the waiver period ends, the player would go to the team with the highest waiver priority of the teams that submitted a claim. This team would then move to the back of the waiver priority line and the waiver order would adjust accordingly. The waiver order to start the season is usually the inverse draft order.

“Flags Fly Forever” – Term used by Cory and Mike to promote the idea that keeper league owners should always play to win now and worry about next year later unless they are completely out of contention.

“The road to fifth place is lined with closers of the future” – A favorite line of Cory’s used to remind owners that stacking up on too many guys who could potentially give them saves will not get them anywhere. Rather, they should focus only on the players who ARE getting the saves.

“Strength loves certainty, weakness loves risk” – Popular 411 saying usually used when answering trade questions. Owners in first place should be less inclined to make trades and stick with what is working while owners who are struggling need to be more aggressive with trades and pickups. Cory adopted the phrase from John Benson, one of the best-known early roto analysts.

“You’ll cut him and then I’ll pick him up” – Phrase used often by Mike to advise people not to trade for waiver-wire level players. Chances are the owner proposing the trade will end up cutting the player once he realizes that there are no takers, so why give up anything if you don’t have to?

“Hitters hit” – A popular 411 saying underlining the 411 philosophy of valuing hitting over pitching as, from year to year, the statistical production of hitters tends to be more consistent and predictable than that of pitchers.

The Wheel – Refers to either the first or last draft position where a team would get to make back-to-back picks throughout the draft.

“Chasing Saves” – The practice of picking up any available mid to low-level relief pitcher who is getting saves regardless of the damage they might do to your ERA and WHIP.

“Mashers” – Big time power hitters.

“Burners” – High stolen base contributors.

“Five category players” – Players who contribute in all five hitting categories, particularly possessing the ability to both hit for power and steal bases.

OPS – The sum of on-base percentage and slugging percentage. For leagues that use extra categories beyond the standard 5×5, OPS is a popular choice.

BABIP – “Batting average on balls in play” is a useful stat to determine the extent to which a player’s batting average has been influenced by luck. This stat can also be used for pitchers as an unusually high BABIP allowed suggests that the pitcher’s ERA and WHIP are bound to go down with better luck.

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14 Comments

First I want to thank everyone who puts in the work to make 411 what it is now. I was an early listener while living in Europe when it was just radio, and I have yet to find a better source of good fantasy analysis and advice. I won my NL only money keeper league last year and I took a number of suggestions and advice both directly and indirectly to do so. I have now entered for the first time in an in person auction NL only draft money league. 12 teams deep deep rosters FAAB, the works. Very challenging league. I recently traded Mike Stanton at 7$ to pgrade my catcher from I-rod to Molina, my SP from Blanton to Hudson and was able to get Franklin in the deal from an owner who had given up on him. I gave away one good prospect in Singleton, but I think I did well in that trade. Now I am getting offers for Latos to fill the hole in my Ut spot. I’ve been offered Pagan, but I’m not ready to sell low on Latos yet, especially with Greinke on the DL. I trust your judgement. Should I try to trade Latos for a big bat, or should I wait and see if I can trade Wainwright to a rebuilding team later in the year (although I would love to have him at that price next year). The FAAB is garbage with a league this deep unless a player is called up that is not already owned is traded from the AL.

Thanks for all the wisdom and laughs over the years,
Larry (aka Higgs) from France then Denmark now in NYC

I believe Siano discussed him on yesterday’s show but here’s my two cents:

Sands was tremendous in the Minors last season and has continued to rake this year so he should be on the radar in any league. It remains to be seen whether he will see everyday playing time, but on power potential alone he’s certainly worth a speculative pickup.

I’ve never been in a league that uses Vickery bidding but it makes sense that it would lead to more aggressive bidding as the owner would know he won’t have to pay full price. Personally, I prefer standard bidding as it forces you to think twice before submitting a huge bid.

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